December 2009

Despite government delays in announcing the grant awards for the $7.2 billion in broadband stimulus money Congress allocated in January, Vice President Joe Biden Thursday said that within the next month billions will be given to broadband and high-speed rail investments. "And by design, the items in the act which have the biggest impact are yet to come. Within the next two weeks to a month, another roughly $13 billion is going to be announced rolling out in terms of both investments in broadband and high-speed rail, and competitive education and infrastructure," said Biden in remarks he gave at the opening session of the White House Jobs and Economic Growth Forum. "In fact, the money spent on clean water, renewable energy, superfund sites, and much more, is going to more than double — it's going to more than double in this quarter and will maintain a similar pace for the next two quarters," he said.

On November 30, the Federal Communications Commission held a field hearing at MIT to discuss how broadband can facilitate the smart grid and the energy information economy. The house was packed, the discussion lively, and there was an impressive set of technology demonstrations afterwards. The first panel provided context for understanding the role that the smart grid, and other smart technologies, can play in the U.S. achieving its energy goals. Dr Grochow of the MIT Energy Initiative shared how MIT has been able to achieve a significant reduction in its energy consumption through building energy audits and addressing the large energy requirements of IT through fairly simple measures like turning computers off rather than having their screen saver come on. During the second panel the discussion shifted to provide some examples of how vendors are using energy information to increase the reliability and efficiency of our electricity grid. CEO Adrian Tuck of Tendril, which provides an energy management system for residential users, highlighted that a standard clothes dryer is preset to dry a load in 58 minutes. Simply by adding twenty minutes to the drying time, however, the dryer will consume 50% less energy. Informed customers could decide if they needed the convenience of faster cycle or might prefer to set a longer cycle in exchange for a lower energy bill.

The Oregon Health Network (OHN), one of the largest projects funded by the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Health Care Pilot Program, will mark an important milestone today as it launches its network operations center in a ceremony at the center in Beaverton, Oregon. OHN has a stated goal of bringing low-cost, high speed broadband to primary healthcare stakeholders in Oregon, potentially linking over 300 non-profit health care facilities, both urban and rural. The Pilot Program will provide up to $20.2 million in funding for the project. The launch of the network applications center (NOC) is an important milestone in the project, allowing centralized management and tracking of network quality and connections, and facilitating trouble shooting with telecommunications vendors on behalf of OHN participants. The NOC will improve the quality, reliability and functionality of the network by pulling together multiple service providers into a single, consistent network. For example, the NOC would enable a doctor in a Wallowa, Oregon hospital, participating in a video consultation with a doctor at the Oregon Health Science University, to quickly resolve any network problems with a single call to the NOC.

Depending on whom you ask, "21st-century skills" can mean different things: technology literacy, the ability to analyze and apply knowledge, a knack for working effectively with colleagues in teams. In what is probably its most visible form for educators, though, the term refers to the work of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, the Tucson, Ariz.-based public-private initiative that has put the provision of all those skills at the center of its agenda. Known as P21, the group claims 14 member states as working to foster the adoption of new academic-content standards, professional training, and assessments aligned with those skills. It has influential allies, too, including the 3.2 million-member National Education Association. Former Apple Inc., executive Karen Cator, now the head of the U.S. Department of Education's office of educational technology, served a term as chair of the group's strategic council. But after seven relatively quiet years of work, P21 is facing a vocal chorus of detractors of its initiative, primarily from among advocates for a liberal arts and sciences curriculum. Recently, those critics have leveled a more serious charge at the organization. P21, they allege, is a veiled attempt by technology companies—which make up the bulk of the group's membership—to gain more influence over the classroom.